A Day That Will Live In History

Popeshot26May 13.

1981.

The day the pope was shot.

This is a picture that was taken just after the horrible incident.

But it was an event that rehaped the future course of the 20th century.

GET THE STORY HERE.

AND HERE.

Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."

16 thoughts on “A Day That Will Live In History”

  2. And how fitting it is that the Holy Father would choose today to announce his decision to waive the five-year waiting period before the canonisation process of John Paul II can begin.

  4. Since Mother Angelica’s direct quote is not linked in your post, LJD, it would be hard for anyone to comment on that. But since Mother Angelica’s nothing but supportive of the Pope, especially JPII, & the Magesterium, I’d say there was never an intent on her part to impugn any pope’s integrity. And, out of charity, neither should it be assumed.

  5. I don’t know anything about Mother Angelica’s appraisal of John Paul II’s character, except that I know she was always loyal and obedient to him. As for whether or not Sister Lucia and the Catholic Church were telling the truth when they said the entirety of the Third Secret had been released, I would think Mother Angelica is not in a position to know whether or not Sister Lucia, John Paul II, and then Cardinal Ratzinger were telling the truth, so she and all of us should assume they were in good faith in this matter unless evidence to the contrary is found.

  6. “As for the Secret, well I happen to be one of those who thinks we didn’t get the whole thing. . . . There, you know, that’s my opinion. Because I think it’s scary.” -Mother Angelica
    Ref: http://www.christianorder.com/features/features_2003/features_nov03.html
    My point wasn’t that she wouldn’t be in a position to know; my point was simply that one can believe that the entirety of the Third Secret was not revealed without casting aspersions on the character of the late Holy Father.

  8. The truthfulness of parties is one issue. But that presupposes you have an accurate statement from the parties. Isn’t that entirely the point in question? Isn’t hearsay considerably involved here? If some third party says, the Pope said this, or Sister Lucy says this, or controls access to them, then it’s hard to definitively say you’re getting Sister Lucy or the Pope’s words, and not that of their guardians. What we have are documents and attestations from other individuals, prominent figures aren’t accustomed to giving videotaped depositions. So it seems to me that someone could question the plentitude of the revelation of the third secret, without calling the Pope or Sister Lucy a liar. Whether or not this would be a credible questioning is an issue for another day.
    And as far as honesty goes, don’t you remember the Vatican denying that the Holy Father had Parkinson’s disease, or downplaying his illness? What was that but a lie, or fudging the truth, for some presumably higher purpose? If they can lie about that, why not about other things? Or was that not a lie? Regardless, what makes you think the Vatican has to be any more forthright about an apocalyptic revelation, the revelation of which which could have caused considerable chaos?
    Maybe, just like the Holy Father’s health condition, the Secret will be progressively revealed as authorities figure people are ready for it?

  9. In other words, is there a direct statement from the Pope, or from Sister Lucia, regarding the fullness of the revelation of the Third Secret? I’m not talking about an announcement from Sodano or Bertone, rather, an actual statement directly attributable to those figures without going through the medium of someone else announcing it?
    For if not, then I don’t see how aspersions are necessarily cast on the honesty of the two. Rather, the issue becomes what degree of control and authority the late ailing pontiff was exercising amongst his curial officials, or whether a considerably amount of authority had been delegated to them; a point which seems to me a reasonable question.
    Of course, this would necessarily entail eventually questioning the veracity or forthrightness of someone, but not necessarily the Pope or Sister Lucia.
    In any event, this seems a bit of an academic question. Say the 3rd secret did portend apostasy, etc. Would that tell us anything we don’t already know? Does anyone need a revelation to confirm what is increasingly obvious? Fatima is a private revelation, and as such, isn’t teaching us anything we didn’t know already. People worried about the news not getting out should find consolation in Benedict XVI, who has shown in the past a healthy realism, and a hopefully resolution to expel the wolves from the vinyard of the lord.

  10. Geoff. In fact it does follow from the two premises.
    Mother Angelica did not cast aspersions on the Holy Father.
    Mother Angelica doubted the full revelation of the Third Secret.
    Therefore someone can doubt the revelation of the Third Secret without casting aspersions on the Holy Father.

  11. St. John of the Cross was very clear :
    “In giving us his Son, his only Word (for he possesses no other), he spoke everything to us at once in this sole Word – and he has no more to say. . . because what he spoke before to the prophets in parts, he has now spoken all at once by giving us the All Who is His Son. Any person questioning God or desiring some vision or revelation would be guilty not only of foolish behaviour but also of offending him, by not fixing his eyes entirely upon Christ and by living with the desire for some other novelty.” (The Ascent of Mount Carmel)

  13. Well, if the Catholic Church *has* lied about revealing the full text of the Third Secret, then nobody will be able to prove that the Church hasn’t revealed the full text, so this entire exercise is pointless speculation. If Ratzinger, now Benedict XVI, and Sodano, and Bertone, are deliberately suppressing the suppositious Secret Part of the Third Secret, then we’re all out of luck, aren’t we? We’ll never know what we need to know, and the Church will be destroyed as a result — all men will be damned to hell, because we all know that no one can be saved without the Secret Part of the Third Secret, which no one not in the know can actually prove exists in the first place.
    But no, it’s a private revelation anyway, so even if the unproveable, uncharitably cynical un-Catholic conspiracy theory is true, and there is a yet-to-be-revealed Secret Part of a Secret that the Pope is deliberately lying about, it doesn’t make any real difference.

  14. During Mass today I discovered that the bullet that was fired at Pope John Paul the Great was placed in the ‘crown’ (I know there’s a better name for it but I can’t think of it now) of the Statue of Our Lady of Fatima! I thought that was pretty incredible.
    God Bless.

  15. We can call Pope John Paul II the Pope of Fatima. He visited Fatima three times. I last saw him on May 13, 2000 when he came to beatify two little children (Francisco Marto and Jacinta Marto) with Sister Lucy present, who saw Our Lady of Fatima. Within a few days, in the Carmel of St. Joseph of Fatima, Sister Lucy held the very crown of Our Lady, which now has the bullet destined to kill the Pope but failed thanks to Mary’s gentle hand.
    We hope Pope Benedict XVI will come to Fatima to inaugurate the new Basilica of the Most Holy Trinity in 2007, 100th birthday of Sister Lucy. Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, has presided at the ceremonies on October 12-13, 1996.

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